


This Is How You Love a Mortal

by immortalflowers



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fae & Fairies, Hongjoong the human with too much ambition, Kind of angsty, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Rituals, Seonghwa as the fae prince that went astray
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23286772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalflowers/pseuds/immortalflowers
Summary: Hongjoong returns to his lover after three years had passed, the Courts welcome him as they always do.Hongjoong was letting Seonghwa kiss him and make him gasp, maul his neck and leave petal shaped bruises on his neck and collarbones – a crown of kisses for the king of dreams. They say that consuming food whilst in Courts will make you hunger for human food no more; likewise, having Seonghwa made him no longer hunger for his own world.
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 18
Kudos: 58





	This Is How You Love a Mortal

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello!! This fic was rlly just an excuse for me to work on world building, and while it's kind of short, I feel like I managed to at least lay down a basic feel for "the Courts". Anyway, I really liked writing this, it was fun!! 
> 
> Pls stay safe and at home if that's possible, but meanwhile, enjoy reading this!
> 
> Kudos and comments are much appreciated, as always <3
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/yoongsicle)   
>  [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/immortalflowers)

The ritual was simple: wait for the full moon to pass and the waning moon to settle, bring milk, honey and a trinket to appease the Gatekeeper – it’s the way to the heart of the one you most desire.

Hongjoong wished it looked like something out of a fairy-tale, a pretty little wicker basket filled to the brim with goods, overflowing with red-ripe strawberries and covered with a chequered tablecloth, him dressed in a virgin white flowy shirt, black trousers and barefoot; but reality was quite different.

Hongjoong was dressed for war.

The moon had just settled when he stepped inside the fairy ring, the mushrooms enclosing it taking on a sinister red glow, their rot and decay almost a palpable thing in the air around him, the forest behind him a claw extended by a monster out to get him.

Hongjoong kneeled on the dewy grass, the softness of it tickling his skin through the slits at the knees of his worn out cargo pants. In front of himself he spread out a deep dish and his favourite sharpened hunting knife.

He cut deeply into his wrist, next to the myriad of already white healed scars and let the blood flow freely into the little bowl set before him; the lines the vermillion liquid was making down his fingers creating a macabre sight, colouring his grown out nails.

Honey and milk can work only once, twice if you’re lucky and know your way with words, for the horned figure that stands at the entrance of the Courts waiting for its first meal will sooner or later grow teeth and fangs, and not even the blood will sate its hunger. Hongjoong will be made to find something even more gruesome.

Perhaps, Hongjoong thought, it’s not the blood that the fae hungers for, but the things forgotten, given away. Hongjoong’s offerings made a slippery slope, his blood soon becoming less and less pure, the honey stolen from his grandma’s cottage now only a taste behind his teeth.

He was looking at nothing but the vast clearing, weeds and wildflowers illuminated by the dying light of the moon and his flashlight, fireflies igniting and perishing here and there, the smell of honeysuckle heavy and cloying in its candy like sweetness, when he blinked and it appeared.

“What have you brought me this time?” It asked in what appeared to be a genderless but somehow still childlike voice, a seven year old boy lost in the woods.

Hongjoong reached into his pocket to retrieve a mirror shard wrapped in a white cloth, embroidered golden tendrils climbing the fabric like ivy ruined walls, and pushed it in the shape’s direction, a mass of black forming clawed fingers grabbed it from under his nose.

“This does not belong to you, boy,” the creature intoned angrily.

“It was given to me by a Fae,” Hongjoong lied through his teeth, trying to keep an affronted face in case it could tell he was lying.

“I will let you pass,” it said, hiding the shard between the folds of its clothes. “However,” it continued, and Hongjoong stiffened. “Upon your return, you will bring me a tress of your lover’s hair,” it smiled crookedly at him, its teeth sharp icicles, its eyes the blood moon.

Hongjoong nodded and sighed in relief, he had no qualms that he would not be returning, and easily agreed.

He walked down the beaten path for twenty minutes, taking a sharp left right before the bridge going over the cerulean river and followed it downstream.

When he first arrived at the Courts, he marvelled at the colour of the river, and upon closer inspection found that it wasn’t clear when trapping it in his hands, but a non transparent liquid.

The most curios to him yet, was the night sky – the world of Faerie so old the stars filled out the entirety of their midnight blue canopy, resembling a diamond tapestry; the darkness white and glittering.

The Courts took on the shape and form you knew best. For Hongjoong it was his home back in the human world; even if it tried to look normal, everything seemed slightly wrong. The trees a little too green, a little too still in the wind, the river that took on a colour more then a molecular shape of water. Saturation of the world was turned up in this place, the grass too green, sky too blue, too orange, too pink.

The people were in many things the same as every other human being Hongjoong had seen before, but it seemed they tried a bit too much to convince him they were human – their skin always had a healthy flush in the cheeks like a painted doll’s, their breaths always even and levelled. Their eyes glossy, teary and emotional but at the same time lifeless, an uncanny painting that follows you with its eyes as you walk through a museum, something in it making you return to look at it one more time before leaving.

And human was a term that Hongjoong used very loosely, their ears were pointed, long and sharp, some had scales instead of skin, others little horns hiding away between the layers of their hair; on first glance their appearance fooled you, made you look away, your mind telling you there was nothing wrong, looking twice though, the glamour almost always shattered.

Hongjoong made his way down the path that could only be seen by his eye, following the placement of the trees under the moonlit sky of the Courts, he went deeper into the woods. He walked for another hour, the stars falling back and revealing dark purple skies, until he happened across a cottage.

The hut was like something out of a fairy-tale, obviously well lived in, the sole chimney smoking a grey aerosol that glittered and shimmered in the air if he looked at it too long. The rose bushes were well kept by a skilled hand, the vegetable garden recently dug through in search of weeds and undergrowth.

The goblins that lived under the porch gave Hongjoong a menacing look for waking them up before sun-up, he ignored them in favour of knocking three times on the door, but before his fist even touched the wood, they blew wide open.

“What are you doing here?” A faceless, body-less voice asked him, not welcoming him inside the dark front room, but not cursing him out either.

“Can’t I come say hello to an old friend?” Hongjoong retorted, and the person within laughed and pulled him inside, hugging him tightly.

“I missed you, you fool,” they said into his neck, “But you shouldn’t have returned,” they told him as if regretting his return in his stead.

“I know, Yeosang, but I have nothing left in my world,” he shrugged, letting go of the body and falling back into an armchair placed conveniently in front of the fireplace.

“I will give you a piece of advice,” Yeosang said easily, handing Hongjoong a steaming mug giving off a bitter smell. He sat the mug on the side table next to him.

Before Hongjoong managed to open his mouth and answer, Yeosang spoke. “Love is cruel, but leaving without saying goodbye made _you_ cruel, Hongjoong.”

Hongjoong deflated.

“That’s not why I’m here,” Hongjoong said before Yeosang could stop him once again.

“I’m not here to speak about him,” he said offhandedly. “I genuinely wanted to see you and Wooyoung, and – ” He stopped.

“And San?” Yeosang asked.

“Sure, San as well,” Hongjoong finished. “How have you all been? I don’t even know how long had passed since you’d seen me last.”

“They’re good, they’re okay,” Yeosang pushed the words out, as if Hongjoong was halting him from saying something important. “You can’t go back home,” he told Hongjoong. “The Gatekeeper…” Yeosang levelled a look at him under the honey coloured curls falling into his eyes. “You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you?”

“What does it matter?” Hongjoong asked.

But Hongjoong had, he heard the myths, and took them as such. The Fae whom falls in love with a mortal is doomed to spend all of eternity on the confines of the Courts and the human realm. A curse placed upon his people by the Seelie King himself, or because the world hungers for young fools, who could even tell the difference?

“It matters, because his time has come, and the King will search for another. One misstep and you will doom Seonghwa for life.” And what a long and awful life it would be.

For with every passage, he made a new gamble, a deal with himself and his suffering. With every departure he took more from his world, his life, and with every return he took more of Seonghwa, and the life they made here. It was all lost in transition, and he had been left with less than he had starting out.

“Coming and going so recklessly… however you wish,” Yeosang stared at him with his unnerving, unblinking gaze. “It takes a toll, one you will have to pay if you go back. The Gatekeeper never forgets, Hongjoong, you will be sure to remember that.”

“That’s so ominous, Yeosang, what the fuck?” Hongjoong demanded. “How long has it been? Just tell me that.”

“It’s been three years,” Yeosang said detachedly. “And for you?”

Hongjoong wanted to gasp in shock, but he found his lungs constricting his breathing, like a thorned vine had wrapped itself around them.

“It was-“ Hongjoong started, chocking up. “It was only a month,” he managed to get out.

And as if the world around him knew of his mood, the second he left Yeosang’s home, the sky broke and rivets of clear blue rain started beating down at Hongjoong. He let the rain brake his skin, the cold settling deep into his bones; he hoped this would atone him for what he was about to do.

He walked back down his mind’s path to the bridge over the turquoise river, crossing it, he knew it was time to burn it down in a fiery hellscape.

He could barely see an inch or two in front of himself, but he arrived at the door of Seonghwa’s stone house mostly unscathed. He made great time, despite the pouring rain – the estate was still in deep sleep, the blinds pulled over the windows on the front of the house made it look like it was really sleeping.

Even after the supposed three years had passed, Hongjoong found that almost nothing had changed. The gardens he passed on his way to the entrance were filled with his favourite flowers – like homage to Hongjoong. It made him sick.

Was Seonghwa really waiting for him even after all this time?

He snuck into Seonghwa’s home the way he always did: through the back door and up the steep staircase leading directly into Seonghwa’s bedroom. No one was awake to see him creep through the kitchen and climb the stairs, but the stone in his gut weighed on him with every step he took.

When he finally made his way to Seonghwa’s room, he stopped outside it to listen for movement. The house knew him, and let him in easily – it was Faerie magic. After all, he was here when Seonghwa set it down, but he wasn’t sure if _this_ door would let him in.

There was only one way to find out, though.

Placing his hand on the lock, he found it gave way easily under the weight of his presence. The doors opened in a wide arc, and Hongjoong stepped into the room, still in his dirty faux military boots.

Seonghwa was lying peacefully in the bed pushed to the wall on Hongjoong’s right, under a window protected by a heavy blood red curtain at this time of the day. His human eyes had a hard time adjusting to the darkness, but he could see him sprawled in the middle of the bedding, sheets pushed down to his feet, a messy sleeper when awake was nothing short of proper and most immaculate.

Stepping closer, Hongjoong could see Seonghwa’s chest raise and fall with breaths indicating he was in deep sleep, eyes under his eyelids moving rapidly. His heart took on a different melody, beating an unsteady tattoo under his chest.

Hongjoong felt like a thief, and in some ways he was, looking at Seonghwa’s peaceful form; even after three years he looked mostly the same. The shape of his cheekbones, the length of his eyelashes, the imprint of his lips in his mind’s eye – all the same. His hair was a sliver longer now, though, Hongjoong noticed. It was spread around his head like a dark halo – his avenging angel.

Hongjoong undressed down to his boxer shorts, leaving the clothes haphazardly around the room, something that Seonghwa always nagged him for – now only an afterthought.

He slithered his way under the one blanket that was still covering Seonghwa, and lay down next to him. He felt his heart in his throat. What will Seonghwa say? How will he act, now that he hadn’t seen him after three years? Yeosang had somewhat assured him that Seonghwa was still in love with him, but thinking of that interaction only made him wince.

Placing his head near Seonghwa’s on the pillow, Hongjoong put his hand on Seonghwa’s cheek, only now noticing the long earring that hanged from the viciously pointy tip of his ear, laying in a heap like a sleeping dragon.

Seonghwa stirred, eyes opening in slits, still tired and sleepy. “Little bird,” he whispered. “You’re here again.” The sentence was said with such desperation that Hongjoong wanted to cry, the ornate iron knife in his pocket might had as well been stabbed into his chest.

Hongjoong pushed his hair back, black like the dark skies outside, his depthless eyes blinking at Hongjoong with their unnatural shine. “I’m here,” Hongjoong told him. “I came back to you.”

Seonghwa laughed suddenly and it threw Hongjoong off his course. One moment he was lying next to him, and the next he was underneath Seonghwa, playing a game of predator and prey – in which one was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and the other a hunter.

Seonghwa surged in to kiss him with all the desperation of a dying man gasping for his last breath, and Hongjoong gave in to it. Letting him kiss him and make him gasp, maul his neck and leave petal shaped bruises on his neck and collarbones – a crown of kisses for the king of dreams.

They say that consuming food whilst in Courts will make you hunger for human food no more; likewise, having Seonghwa made him no longer hunger for his own world. It made him wicked and a cheat – not deserving of Seonghwa’s devotion.

“Stop,” Hongjoong gasped into his mouth, while Seonghwa’s hands were making a dangerous path down his body. “Stop, stop,” he said, pushing at Seonghwa’s shoulders.

He wanted to both push him away and pull him closer; eat him from inside out, break his bones and suck his bone marrow dry, leaving him only a bag of bones shaped human.

“We should talk,” Hongjoong said firmly.

“Little bird, little bird,” Seonghwa sang, and for the first time Hongjoong wondered if he wasn’t drunk. He laughed, “You torment my dreams every night, can’t I get a reprieve, my darling?” Seonghwa asked the canopy above him. It sparkled in a curious way only the stars on Hongjoong’s night sky did.

“Seonghwa,” Hongjoong said, sitting up on his knees. “I’m here, I’m real.” He touched the chilled skin under Seonghwa’s unbuttoned sleep shirt; his heart beat a staccato rhythm.

“You always say that, yet you _always lie_ ,” Seonghwa despaired, heaving a sigh and looking at Hongjoong as if looking through a clear window, looking through him, or god forbid, inside him. “You are, _undoubtedly_ , the biggest cheat I’ve ever known, and I’ve lived twice your lifetime already.”

“Leave me to wallow in my self pity, little bird,” Seonghwa told him. “Begone, fly away, it’s the only thing you’re good at.”

And no matter how right Seonghwa was, Hongjoong still felt his words like a slap in the face.

“Go to sleep then, old man,” Hongjoong murmured giving in, looking at Seonghwa’s eyes closing in exhaustion.

After he made sure Seonghwa had fallen back into deep sleep, he slipped out of the bed and pulled the iron knife from the scabbard in his pants’ pocket.

He manoeuvred his way back to his place on Seonghwa’s bed (the one that Seonghwa used to call theirs) and cautiously wrapped his fingers around a long strand of silky ink on the back of his neck. Seonghwa’s head was turned in the opposite direction, showing the long expanse of skin and jugular veins hidden underneath.

It would take so little to end his life, Hongjoong thought, and was immediately horrified by where his mind took him.

He wrapped the strand around the blade of the dagger and pulled, a curious strand of black hair laid in his curled fist. He returned the knife and stored the hair in another pocket of his cargo pants, leaving Seonghwa’s bedroom in favour of snooping through the old stone walls.

He returned shortly, finding nothing new worthy of his attention, and curled up beside Seonghwa, falling asleep in no time.

He awoke again to Seonghwa sitting up with his back to the flower carved wooden headboard, gazing at him with an unreadable expression. Hongjoong’s stomach flipped. It would’ve been good if Seonghwa was happy, fine even if he was pissed – but his stony face made him want to curl up further into himself and disappear.

“You told me to wait,” Seonghwa told him. “But you dared to pay me a visit upon visit in my dreams. Are you even real? Are you here with me?”

Hongjoong gazed at him from his place in the bed, the canopy of stars reflecting in his eyes. “I’m here,” Hongjoong whispered, his heart in his throat.

Seonghwa slowly stretched a hand towards Hongjoong’s cheekbones as if afraid he would evanesce upon touch. Hongjoong pushed up on his knees before Seonghwa’s fingers could make contact with his skin, putting his arm on the sliver of pale skin between his collarbones.

“I’m not going back home,” it was not technically a lie. “You are my home,” Hongjoong told him. “You gave up the crown for me, I could never be so selfish to leave you alone to rot in this house.”

Seonghwa sighed in relief, hugging Hongjoong close to his body, cradling his head that lay in the crook of his neck.

“I thought you were a vision,” Seonghwa admitted.

“I’m not,” Hongjoong said with conviction, “I won’t ever be one again,” Hongjoong said, surging in for a kiss – sealing the covenant with blood. Seonghwa gasped, breathing heavily from the force of the kisses, and as Hongjoong licked at his wound, Seonghwa gave in.

It took them no time at all to undress Seonghwa, and for him to sink readily into Hongjoong, both gasping for breath, both overwhelmed with emotions, stars above them, and Hongjoong’s tears their only beholders.

Hongjoong craved for more, he wanted everything; the world his to conquer. The crown that Seonghwa gave up back on his head, his brother brought back to life, to love Seonghwa as much as Seonghwa loved him.

 _This is how you love a mortal Seonghwa_ , Hongjoong thought, remembering the lock of hair he had cut off, _you don’t_.


End file.
